The Fall of Toulon

by Bernard Ireland

  With the departure of the fleet and the convoy of overladen commercial craft the plight of the remaining committed population became all too evident. Although the artillery fire tailed off to the occasional delivery and the victorious conventionnels were yet to enter the town in any number, the flame, smoke and stench of the many fires, mostly left to burn, created the perfect backdrop for panic, exacerbated by the shouting and chanting from mobs of born-again republicans, rampaging, pillaging and assaulting with none to control them. As the last remaining craft completed and let go, many that were left abandoned self-control, giving way to their abject despair.

  Nelson was not present at the evacuation, his Agamemnon yet again engaged on detached duties. Nevertheless, he was in close contact with those who were, so that his letter to the Duke of Clarence, one week later, was probably not exaggerated when he wrote:

  On the 19th, in the morning such a scene was displayed as would make the hardest heart feel; the mobs had risen, was [sic] plundering, and committing every excess; many – numbers cannot be estimated – were drowned in trying to get off; boats upset; and many put a period to their existence. One family, of a wife and five children, are just arrived – the husband shot himself. Indeed, Sir, the recital of their miseries is too afflicting to dwell upon …

  Yorke and Stevenson’s account, written soon afterward, is critical of Hood who, ‘fully sensible’ to the plight of the royalists

  had not the means or the opportunity of bringing [them off] in the manner and with the speed he wished: it must be confessed also, that there seem to have been a want of plan and foresight … and probably the Royalists in their extreme anxiety to get away, created a confusion which was fatal to many of them … [crowding] to the shores and in all the violence of grief and fear, clamorously demand[ing] that protection which had been promised them on the faith of Britain.

  These authors, too, give a vivid snapshot of the conditions endured by even those fortunate enough to secure a berth aboard a man-of-war.

  Scenes on board the British ships were scarcely less dreadful and appalling. In them were crowded in utter confusion and inexpressible agony and apprehensions, aged men and infants as well as women; besides the sick from all the hospitals, and the mangled soldiers from the posts just deserted, with their wounds fresh, bleeding and undressed. These scenes struck the eye on all sides while horrible screams of distraction, pain and apprehension, mixed with the lamentations of those who had lost their fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, children and friends met the ear in every direction.

  French accounts make much of the fact that the English [sic], before departing, restocked and revictualled their ships from the much-depleted reserves of the Toulon arsenal. While one would reasonably expect this to have been the case, Yorke and Stevenson note that ‘to increase the distress on board the ships, they were without sufficient provision for this mixed and helpless multitude; and a great part of the provision which they actually had was almost unfit for use’.

  And, on that unhappy note, a brief but unique chapter in British maritime history stuttered to its close.

  * ‘Nail the buggers!’

  chapter eight

  Retribution and Recrimination

  THE PRECIPITATE WITHDRAWAL of the coalition forces from Toulon came as something of a surprise to the besieging republicans. To the west, General Dugommier had caused 4,000 ladders to be manufactured in Marseille for the purpose of a mass storming of the town walls. He had reasoned that the remaining strongpoints held by allied troops could not hold out for long and, as soon as they had been abandoned or taken, he would make his move. When the allies pulled out of these locations voluntarily on 18 December, the general thus readied his army for immediate action. Activity in the town, however, kept the French in a state of curiosity and amazement and, as the enemy was obviously withdrawing of his own accord, there was little purpose to be served in seeking a direct confrontation before he went.

  Observers on higher ground could see clearly what was going on. The livre d’ordre of General Marescot noted:

  The noise that could be heard from Toulon indicated the disorder and despair that reigned there. The petite rade was covered with small craft which came and went with great frequency, embarking in haste English, Spaniards, Neapolitans, nobles, clergy, conspirators, etc. It was very clear from all this that the rebel town had opened its gates.

  The hurried demolition programme was punctuated by periodic explosions, mostly a consequence of fires already raging. Those from the two powder hulks, however, and a third, most impressive, detonation as the magazine at Fort Saint-Louis was blown, created a considerable impression on the waiting republicans, who suspected that the allies were mining various points in the town in order to surprise them on their entry.

  Dugommier did not endorse the mine theory, but concern was so general that he delayed moving into the town until it had been reconnoitred by a picked advance guard. This, which entered the town late in the evening, comprised 200 of the Légion des Allobroges, commanded by Adjudant-Général Cervoni. Formed only the previous year, the legion was of expatriate Swiss, Piedmontese and Savoyards, and was widely feared, having been closely associated with the 10 August massacres in Paris. They cultivated their fearsome reputation by, among other habits, reportedly removing the ears of their victims to use as hat decorations. Their inspection complete, they signalled the go-ahead for 6,000 waiting troops who began to move in at about 3 a.m. on the 19th, at about the same time as the military embarkation near Fort la Malgue entered its final phase.

  General Garnier, nominated by the représentants as the town’s commandant, made it his first duty to detach 500 men to assist the galériens (galley slaves) and canonniers (gunners) who were battling the violent fires that now threatened arsenal and town alike.

  The artist Granet accompanied some of the first troops to penetrate the town, which he described as presenting a pitiful sight. Nobody was on the narrow, debris-strewn streets except a group of old women who dutifully cried ‘Vive la République!’, only to attract the foulest of insults in return. Seeking a rest at one stage of his exploration, the young artist made to enter a church, only to discover, blocking the vestibule door, a heap of new corpses, defiled ‘with mud and ordure’. He assumed that he had come upon some of the first victims of Barras and Fréron.

  Moving cautiously, the army had reached most points in the town by midday. Preliminary assessments indicated a considerable amount of booty in matériel and supplies abandoned by the allies. In the town park were discovered 400 head of cattle, sheep and pigs, with adequate fodder. There were tents, artillery equipment, 100 large-calibre cannon and an estimated 40,000 charges. There were 200 Spanish horses, ready saddled and bridled. In the arsenal, despite the damage, there remained a good supply of timber for masts and spars, a large quantity of English canvas, thirty sets of sail for ships of the line and eighteen for frigates.

  An early arrival at the quay was représentant Fréron, accompanying General Dugua and searching for Madame Lapoype who, unknown to them, was safe elsewhere. Among the general carnage here is recorded a ship sunk with 400 aboard and many smaller craft swamped, awash or capsized.

  The big effort now over, General Dugommier, the veteran professional, expressed some sympathy for those remaining in their ruined town. ‘Do you see the fugitives?’, he is reported as saying,

  They are the traitors of Toulon; they are those who are escaping the punishment they deserve. Who are the guilty that remain? Women, children, the elderly and those men who have already shared the horrors that we inspired and which led the rest to flee, and who now stand, unjustly accused.

  His intercession, however, counted for little against the grim formality of republican justice as interpreted and dispensed by the représentants en mission.

  The anger of the Committee of Public Safety at what it viewed as the prolonged betrayal of Toulon could be assuaged only through terrible vengeance. Its original intention was to raze the town totall
y but, as this made no practical sense, penalty was exacted from its unfortunate remaining inhabitants. To expunge its shame, the town was renamed Port de la Montagne, an allusion both to its geography and to the extreme left wing of the National Convention. Interestingly, the edict announcing this change was dated ‘5 nivôse [the fourth month of the new Revolutionary calendar] an 2 de la république française’, which date had been Christmas Day.

  In the first instance, the soldiers of the republic, ill-nourished and resentful from weeks of uncomfortable siege operations, sought food, booty and any further comforts that could be extorted from the citizenry. Suffering the fate of any town sacked in this era, Toulon saw an unknown number of its people killed casually for resisting robbery or violation. There existed no accountability, for had they not all been branded traitors, Enemies of the Republic?

  An early action was to round up as many inhabitants as could be found. These, led by a military band playing jaunty patriotic airs and by bearers of tricolour standards and symbolic laurel wreaths, were marched to the open space of the Place d’Armes. Here, a ‘patriotic jury’ of the town’s Jacobins, suddenly reunited with their true beliefs, selected 200, apparently at random. Many old scores and outstanding debts died with them as they were summarily shot against the long wall of the Cordérie, the rope house. As a warning to all, their corpses were left where they dropped.

  Frustration was quickly evident, however, as the représentants reported to Paris that ‘all those in charge, all the ringleaders [meneurs] and all the Marseille refugees have left, escaping in three of our best ships, under the command of the perfidious Trogoff’.

  During the afternoon of 19 December, roving patrols proclaimed that all, without distinction, should congregate on the Champ de Mars, all too recently the scene of parading coalition forces. Each house was visited and any who refused were shot where they stood. Individuals, making their way as required, were hurried and humiliated with blows or by prods with sabres. Surrounded by soldiers, covered by cannon, the considerable throng was then kept waiting, each with his own fears, all expecting the worst. As darkness again gathered, the représentants arrived. To widespread relief, all that followed was a harangue which ended with an order for all to return to their homes to await the decision of the Convention as to what should happen next.

  On the following day, all were again assembled and, on this occasion, were faced by ‘jurors’ largely drawn from prisoners released from the Thémistocle. These, soured or angered by their confinements, now had the pleasure of tormenting their erstwhile judges. Each, wearing a red Revolutionary cap and bearing a sign with the ironic label patriotes opprimés (‘oppressed patriots’), passed slowly among the silent crowd, arbitrarily selecting their victims, who had then to move and form a group to one side. There was again a brief preparation by the troops, pleas and tears ignored, and a further crashing volley. Many were only injured and, according to French sources, there came a shouted instruction that those who could still march away would be pardoned by the state. Bloodied, the survivors fought to stand, but all they succeeded in doing was to identify those still worth further attention. A second volley finished the job.

  This arbitrary slaughter at the whim of the patriotes opprimés was later succeeded by a more ordered fate, judicial execution at the hands of a military commission composed of ‘sans-culottes Parisiens’. Fréron not only gave every indication of relishing his employment but also wished to impress this upon the Committee of Public Safety, to which he wrote regularly. On 28 December he indicated a requirement for no less than 12,000 masons to demolish and to reconstruct the town’s public buildings. In passing, he mentioned 200 executions each day to date (or, in his own chilling words: ‘Tous les jours, depuis notre entrée, nous faisons tomber deux cents têtes’), equivalent to an execution every three minutes over a ten-hour day. Then, shortly afterward, he wrote again: ‘Fusillades are the Order of the Day here, the mortality being among the friends of Louis XVII …; fusillades there will be until there are no more traitors …’

  As a measure to discourage further indiscriminate pillaging of private property, the représentants announced a bounty of 100 livres to every soldier who had taken part in the taking of Toulon. The money, however, was to be raised by a sale of the effects of the inhabitants (though to whom remains a mystery). Each who had lived in the town throughout the rebellion was required to make an inventory of all furniture and valuables, together with their title. Each house would be visited to verify the list, and any person refusing to comply, or who submitted a false list, would be summarily punished (‘sur-le-champ’), following judgement by the military commission, which sat in continuous session.

  As the mass shootings of the first horrific days tailed off, the commission substituted its favoured instrument, the guillotine. The commission was described as comprising six members, of whom three sat in judgement. There was no public prosecutor and no jury. And no appeal. Those detained were brought directly from their cells, their name and profession noted, together with the value of their estate. Sentence was passed and the prisoner sent down to join the cart which was waiting outside the main entrance of the Palais de Justice. With the cart loaded, the commission would appear on the balcony above and publicly announce the list of sentences, whereupon their unhappy subjects would be trundled off to meet the humiliation of a public fate. Records include a 94-year-old man as well as a young mother, ‘recently delivered’.

  The extent of the seemingly limitless horrors visited upon the hapless citizens of Toulon is difficult to gauge accurately, although studies indicate that it was less severe than in Lyon. Of the four représentants, Fréron was dominant. Vindictive and boastful, he wrote continually to the Committee of Public Safety about the scale of the vengeance that he had levied yet, come the later, so-called ‘Thermidorian Reaction’ and the downfall of the Jacobins, we find him backtracking vigorously, claiming that his victims numbered no more than 150. Records list about 600 executed by order of the military commission, or without trial. Such documentation is far from complete, however, and anecdotal evidence suggests an overall figure that exceeded 2,000.

  For his part, General Dugommier was genuinely appalled by events in Toulon following the town’s recovery. Stating that his mission had been completed, he requested that the Committee of Public Safety arrange his relief. Duly recognizing his services, this body appointed him Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the Pyrénées-Orientales and less than a month after his forces’ successful assault on Fort Mulgrave he departed.

  The main beneficiary of the whole affair was Buonaparte. On 22 December the députés en mission promoted him to the temporary rank of brigadier general, confirmed soon afterward by the Committee of Public Safety. It was well deserved for, even if he could not take personal credit for the grand plan, nor for the capture of General O’Hara (both of which he later claimed), he had shown a steadfast resolve to see the plan through and, on a tactical level, had created a chain of well-sited batteries whose continuous activity, like the long jabs of an agile boxer, slowly accumulated damage to their coalition opponents, steadily wearing them down. In creating this decisive element, Buonaparte had personally and energetically laboured against torpor and inertia in others, demonstrating the ‘can-do’ philosophy that would shortly catapult him into the position of head of state. For the moment, he was a 23-year-old brigadier who had greatly impressed the right people, and who was about to assume the appointment of artillery commander of the Army of Italy.

  AS FOR THE TOWN of Toulon, there was a wider war in progress, and it was apparent even to the dogmatic diehards of the Paris Convention that the town, arsenal and skilled workforce comprised a national asset too valuable to squander. The French Mediterranean fleet, although hard hit by recent events, proved not to be beyond the possibility of redemption, given the political will to reconstruct it. This the Revolutionary government had in abundance.

  Fréron’s grand plan for razing the town centre was thus reduced to th
e destruction of a few symbolic buildings. The principal villains (‘scélérats’) had, to a man, departed with the allied fleets and there was a limit to how far the remaining populace could be punished for its sins against the new republic, despite the idealistic ranting of the thoroughbred Revolutionary deputies such as Louis-Antoine Saint-Just who, during the siege, had declared,

  We must govern by iron those who cannot be governed by justice … It is impossible for revolutionary laws to be executed unless the government itself is truly revolutionary. You can hope for no prosperity as long as the last enemy of liberty breathes. You have to punish not only traitors but even those who are neutral…

  Toulon and its population were, none the less, needed for the national cause. Reduced to some 15,000 by the troubles, the population began to expand rapidly with the energetic input of Jeanbon Saint-André, lately instrumental in settling the serious mutiny in the Atlantic fleet at Quiberon. Many of the town’s bourgeois aristocracy, the principal employers outside the arsenal, had left as fugitives and were now proscribed. Despite this, there existed work in abundance as the Convention, with characteristic vigour, put its weight behind the civic regeneration necessary to rebuild the fleet into a credible force once more.

  The French themselves were surprised at the number of their ships which had survived in a repairable condition. Most of those in the old basin, the majority of them unmasted hulls, had come through due to the inadequate attention of the Spanish demolition teams (which further convinced the British of large-scale collusion, Hood writing in his report to Henry Dundas that Admiral Langara had told ‘a very respectable person’ that it might be for the interest of England to burn the French fleet, but that it ‘was by no means the interest of Spain’). In all, there were thirteen ships of the line and five frigates capable of being brought up to a battleworthy standard, while three more ships were under construction. Three further vessels, that had been absent on detached duty, were also now able to return.